


The Love Machine

by somewhereelse



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 03:15:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9301586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somewhereelse/pseuds/somewhereelse
Summary: Find your perfect match with the Love Machine! (Or fated technology tortures the Arrowverse characters.)





	1. Oliver/Felicity

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the Machine of Death short story collection, or at least the first several I read an age ago.

“This is the stupidest thing to ever stupid.”

“Just do it already, Felicity.”

Reluctantly, the teenager inserted her index finger into the designated slot and winced when a needle—damn needles—pricked the pad of her finger. The large machine, almost photobooth-sized, audibly churned for a moment before spitting out a strip of paper into a lower slot, just like a photobooth.

Using her uninjured hand, Felicity retrieved the paper and rolled her eyes as her friend Francesca—they’d bonded over multisyllabic  _F_ names—admonished her to wait to read them together. As Francesca took her turn, she stood back a moment, wondering what tools she’d need to get at the guts of the thing and reverse engineer what made it tick. Because, really, it was just one giant computer processing a blood sample. Finally, Francesca was ready, and Felicity glanced down at the simply printed word, her forehead wrinkling in confusion then veiled disappointment.

“It says _pit_.” She shrugged and tossed the note into the nearest trashcan. Well, that was a waste of $19.99 plus tax. At least her mom wouldn’t mind; she’d been trying to drag Felicity to a Love Machine since her dad split to “restore her faith in the world”. 

“Like Brad Pitt?” her friend asked with a hopeful lilt.

Felicity sighed. “No, like peach or Pit of Despair. One _T_.”

“Oh.” Francesca was obviously disappointed and, instead of dwelling, began waxing poetic about her own word— _rain_ —and assigning ludicrous romantic connotations to it.

MIT really couldn’t come soon enough.

* * *

No one seemed to know exactly how it worked.

Scientists in Japan—no, Germany? Switzerland? somewhere at any rate—had devised a machine that would reveal a person’s soulmate based on a single drop of blood. It was unclear what they had been trying to develop in the first place, and it was even more unclear what they had actually built for years, if not decades. The earliest lab rats had received a slip of paper with a single—often mundane, usually English—word printed on it. They’d then gone on about their lives, giving little to no thought to that random word— _book_ , _tiger_ , _night_ —until one day, it became obvious.

Those random words connected—sometimes in the most unexpected of ways—to the person they considered their soulmate.

Some intrepid, or rather desperate and bored, reporter had done a follow-up story on the study, and with only a few probing questions, each subject realized that just a few degrees of word association connected the seemingly random word to a defining characteristic of their loved one. 

 _Book_ to page to Paige.

 _Tiger_ to an actual tiger tattoo.

 _Night_ to M. Night Shyamalan to horror movie buff.

Really, a needle in a haystack would have been equally as precise, but society went mad with it. A shortcut to finding your soulmate? Who wouldn't fork over a fortune for the information? The original team of scientists had long dispersed, some had even passed, but the original prototype was still sitting in storage, just waiting for new trials. People the world over volunteered to test the machine, but the research company was strategic. They only tested couples who'd been _happily_ married for over half a century. And for those lucky people, the word association was obvious. After a brief look at their slip, just a shared glance was all they needed to break out in knowing chuckles. Once the confirmation trials were complete, the machine was rushed into mass production—under very closely guarded trade secret protection.

 _Find your perfect match with the Love Machine!_ became the slogan of dreams and nightmares.

* * *

_brook_

It had been his easiest pick-up line for, well, girls named Brooke. He just helpfully omitted the part where his word technically referred to a small stream. Besides, the Love Machine was rarely ever that straightforward.

He’d gone to get  _matched_ with Tommy as a lark. Most girls in school were desperate to know who the Queen and Merlyn heirs were destined to be with—and how they could become that girl.

Tommy’s had been as obvious as they came though it still felt like a sucker punch to Oliver.  _Handcuffs_ , an obvious reference to Detective Lance, Laurel’s determination to become a district attorney, and the last weekend’s escapade which somehow ended with Tommy and Laurel handcuffed to each other even before the police cruiser arrived to respond to the noise complaint. After Oliver had snuck a peek over Tommy’s shoulder, his best friend had looked an overwhelming mixture of guilty, mortified, and relieved, and Oliver knew then that the Love Machine was right. Still, the next day he offered to take Laurel, then on-again girlfriend, to the mall and convinced her to get matched. The machine printed the word  _magic_ , and she’d blushed, stuttered through a nonsensical explanation of sorts, then finally blew out a long sigh of relief.

Admittedly, Oliver didn’t react well. It wasn’t really that he believed Laurel was his soulmate, but the realization that she’d been faking wanting to be with him was painful. Then there was his regret that his selfish reliance on Laurel as a sure thing had kept apart two people who he cared about and who were apparently meant to be together.

So Oliver latched onto his dad’s offer of one last hurrah before attempting to adult, invited Sara to join, and learned real pain and regret.

Now, in the rare moments of quiet, the word haunted him. Every time he turned it over in his mind, he couldn’t figure out what the hell an actual small stream had to do with a living, breathing person. When he’d met Shado, Oliver had tried to connect it to her strongest characteristics—peace and serenity—but that hadn’t _felt_ right. He’d asked once if she’d ever been matched, but their family philosophy discouraged that predetermined approach to life.

In the end, it hadn’t been right at all, and he’d unwittingly ruined yet another perfect match.

On the selfish side of things, Oliver often grieved his own perfect match because how was he ever going to meet her if he never got off this cursed island again. And who’s to say she’d want to put up with his crusade to save Starling City, or that he would, could, or should be in a relationship while undertaking this dangerous of a mission? Or, worst case scenario, if he died tomorrow on this stinking rock, would she live out her days with the false hope that she’d one day meet her perfect match?

* * *

“I was right!” Felicity exclaimed, her phone loudly clattering onto the desk. “That _is_ the stupidest thing to ever stupid.”

Oliver dropped down from the bottom rung of the salmon ladder and stripped off his gloves. “I’m missing something?” It was a statement that still came out like a question because Felicity.

“Pit. Olive pit. Oliver,” Felicity rattled off, her palm solidly connecting with her forehead. “That elderly woman you helped with her groceries did call you a peach yesterday. And I guess you’re basically a Pit of Despair unto yourself so that works too.”

“What? Is that a, uh, Princess—um?” he trailed off uncertainly, even as she stood and wrapped her arms around his waist in a tight hug.

“Bride, not Diaries. The superior movie hands down, though Princess Diaries is solid and has its own redeeming qualities. Anne Hathway before Hathahate became a thing, the beginning of Mandy Moore’s acting career—who knew that would take off?—Sandra Oh pre-Grey’s, Julie Andrews, duh—”

Oliver smiled softly as her gesturing hands counted off redeeming qualities of a Disney movie Thea had adored. “You’re losing me.”

“I was just on Facebook, and my high school friend Francesca is visiting her wife’s family in Seattle. Apparently, it hasn’t stopped raining since she got there, which is a _hard_ adjustment for a Vegas girl, let me tell you. Anyway, _rain_ , Seattle.” Felicity sighed at his continued look of confusion. “You’re my perfect match. Like registered trademark, hashtag, heart emoji, capital letters _Perfect Match_.”

Oliver stilled for a moment before he grinned, chuckling in disbelief. “And you’re my babbling brook.”


	2. Sara/Nyssa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sara Lance thinks the Love Machine's screwed her over big time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First foray outside of Oliver/Felicity because I just marathoned the first season of Legends. Is the overarching plot really a dude so butthurt about being rejected that he stalks the unsuspecting woman through centuries and reincarnated lives to violently murder her? Da fuq, Berlanti? Hoping Season 2 has more badass Sara Lance, and less repetitive stalking/menacing/harrassing/murdering of women who say no.

The universe had to be playing a cruel joke on her.

First, her word wasn’t even in _English_. At the risk of being irrationally superstitious, bad things happen when Lances travel. So they stopped doing it, and even crazy smart Laurel, who got accepted _everywhere_ , chose a university within driving distance. She couldn’t even recognize the characters beyond their Middle Eastern(?) appearance. Because, and it’s totally worth repeating, _bad_ things happen when Lances travel. 

Second, was the language of the word. She took a picture and uploaded it to an online translation forum because her laptop keyboard was totally not equipped for this. _Arabic_ , the helpful anonymous user had quickly identified, and that puzzled Sara even more. Did she even know anyone from... _Mesopotamia_? Apparently, the language was so ancient, it transcended modern geographical borders. The Love Machine couldn’t even narrow it down to a single country?

Third, but most importantly, the (translated) word itself was a nightmare. Because Sara Lance hated horror movies and screw this hunk of circuitry for trying to turn her life into one.

_ghost_

Was her soulmate Casper the Friendly Ghost? Moaning Myrtle? A ghost hunter? All jokes aside, was her perfect match already dead? Like in ancient Mesopotamian times? Had she missed her chance?

The Love Machine worked in mysterious ways. No one knew how it constantly updated its knowledge of pop culture, no one knew how it had been programmed with a multitude of languages, no one knew why it couldn’t be more straightforward. You just plugged it in, and the thing, more or less, _worked_.

Sure, there were probably plenty of people who died without ever figuring out the riddle of their word. But this was the stuff of nightmares, right? The urban legend of a blank slip, a confirmation that there was no one on Earth for you, was obviously top of the shitpile. The idea that her perfect match was dead? That the one person meant for her—and who she was meant for—was already long gone? It had to be a close second.

So she lied. Refusing to get matched fell perfectly in line with the reputation of the rebellious Lance sister. For years afterwards, she pretended she had never been matched and dismissed anyone who tried to make her as  _lame_.

No one—not even some highly calibrated mystery computer with a ridiculously stupid name—was going to dictate her life. 

 

* * *

Then came Ollie and his offer of a sex cruise on the Queen’s Gambit. She knew—absolutely, one hundred percent, without a doubt, _knew_ —that bad things happen when Lances travel, but, hey, she had already helped her sister’s boyfriend cheat on her. Because her own soulmate was apparently  _dead_ , and anyone with eyes could see that Ollie and Laurel weren't _it_ for each other. Not that those were valid reasons for her shitty, enabling behavior, so maybe she deserved all the bad things that came with traveling. Besides what’s the worst that could happen?

Turns out a lot. 

At times, she wished her word described _her_  and not her soulmate. Before being stranded in this hellscape, her most difficult problem had been competing against—and by her estimation, losing to—her perfect older sister. Now, Sara was praying for a way to escape this reality: transcendence to another plane of existence, a time machine, parallel dimensions, _anything_. She was lost at sea, dead to her family and friends, a conscripted assistant to some mad scientist, maybe developing Stockholm syndrome, and despite being stuck on a ship full of international prisoners, still nowhere near a person who knew Arabic.

But then, somehow, Ollie was alive—again—and the supposedly seaworthy vessel sank—again. 

 

* * *

She jolted awake. 

The first thing she noticed was the pain, all over, shooting through seemingly every nerve ending in her body. Not too dissimilar from when she had first woken up on the _Amazo_ , which pretty much guaranteed that, yep, her throat felt like it’d been scraped raw with sandpaper and each inhale was like scratching steel wool over the open wound. Guess she narrowly escaped drowning—again. 

Sara carefully took stock of herself. Limbs all attached and feeling in each one was more than she felt she deserved after the torture she’d enabled under Ivo’s “tutelage”. She knew her name and birthday and, just to prove she still could, she ran through the details of her family. Though slightly foggy, she remembered most of the shitty, shitty,  _shitty_  course of events that brought her to this moment.

The difference was her surroundings. Namely, she wasn’t on the cold floor of a steel cage. Instead, she lay on a soft bed, blanketed in swaths of silk, but secured with a manacle around each wrist and ankle, heavy chains anchoring her to the bedposts.

What. The. Hell.

The door cracked open, and she automatically craned her neck to look, regretting that and the instinctive movement to assume a defensive stance. Didn’t her flight or fight response understand that _everything_ hurt? Once she’d forced her body to uncurl, she focused on the cadence of the foreign words being exchanged just outside the door. Her brain, mildly concussed as it was, perked up. Even though she had no idea what was being said, somehow the language just sounded familiar.

“I was informed you were awake.”

Sara startled and redirected her gaze from the door to the foot of the bed. The speaker was a woman, a _hot_ woman with a lilting accent that really worked for her, dressed in layers of black robes, cementing the impression that she was a freaking ninja with how she appeared out of thin air. She cleared her throat uncomfortably, wincing a little when that just made it hurt more, and the mystery woman noiselessly glided over to a table with a carafe of water and glasses.

She really hoped that wasn’t poisoned.

As if reading her mind, the woman took a decent sized drink before offering it to her. She craned her neck to reach the glass, but her discomfort must have shown because the woman slid a hand under her hair to support her neck. Sara shivered and hoped it was just her weakened state that allowed her vulnerable response through since the woman appeared completely unaffected.

Her throat felt marginally better so she risked trying to talk. “You speak English? I thought I heard—”

“Arabic,” the woman confirmed, her eyebrow barely twitching when Sara’s eyes widened at the word. “I am Nyssa, daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, Heir to the Demon. And you are a prisoner of the League of Assassins.”

A long moment passed during which they just stared at each other, and her mind picked over the terse words, processing them first through the lens of survival then _more_.

 _ghost_ , ghoul, Ghul. A woman who moved as silently as a spirit and claimed to be an assassin, the invisible by trade and necessity.

Sara let out a slightly hysterical laugh, ignoring the burning pain in her throat and her protesting muscles as she unintentionally pulled on the restraints.

“ _Perfect_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was kind of fun. Who’s next?
> 
> Iris who won’t get matched because yet another restrictive social construct is not going to determine her life, and Barry who agrees seemingly in solidarity but really because, for once, he doesn’t need science to tell him what he already knows.
> 
> Thea who was all of eight years old the first time she watched the Princess Diaries and started dreaming about the exact opposite scenario for her perfect match—a normal boy, maybe a little rough around the edges, who would take her away from all the rules and boringness of being a pseudo-princess—and Roy who keeps going back to the Love Machine every time he’s scrounged up enough spare change because he’s 99% sure he’s figured out who his perfect match is and that _cannot_ be right.


	3. Thea/Roy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neither of them signed up for this shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The SDCC 2017 coverage convinces me more and more that Willa Holland and Thea Queen have the same completely bored, mostly apathetic, slightly disdainful, definitely too cool for this shit, but really loves you way, way, way deep down personality.

Thea Queen had spent her adolescence dreaming of the boy she’d love forever. One who liked baseball (but didn’t own his own team) and played in a band (but wasn’t guaranteed a contract from his uncle’s record label) and was mildly addicted to m&m’s (but not designer drugs). Okay, so she had seen  _The Princess Diaries_  when she was ten, and it left an impression. Sue her.

 

* * *

 

Roy still remembered the first time he got matched.

He was fifteen and in the habit of ditching classes after lunch. His buddy snagged—so much better than snatched—a pair of Jordans from some pimply Starling Prep “donor” and flipped them to a guy at the chop shop. They bussed over to the mall, and Roy found himself standing in front of the Love Machine. Everyone in the Glades wanted to get matched, looking for some sign that they wouldn't be stuck in that hellhole forever, like the Love Machine could somehow guarantee they'd marry a Merlyn or a Queen. His buddy generously offered to pay for Roy’s match, and even though he knew he’d pay it back one way or another, Roy took the offer.

“ _What the_ —” Roy cut himself off, reading the word again and then again—“This stupid thing is broken.” He crumbled up the paper and threw it in the trash, conveniently landing it in a half-empty soda, before pushing through the crowd to the exit.

 

* * *

 

The first time he “met” her had been at the ice skating rink. He was thirteen, and the schools in the Glades were _mostly_ unfunded instead of completely unfunded like today. The teachers scraped together enough for some buses and took the grades, one by one, to the annual ice skating rink in front of the Starling City Plaza. Roy forged his mom’s signature on the permission slip and skipped lunch to save the three bucks for the skate rentals.

The rink was pretty empty except for another school who clearly had the same idea to take advantage of a quiet Wednesday morning. The first thing he noticed was the cute girl spinning in the middle of the ice, her long brown curls settling around her as she slowed to a stop. And then he was moving through the skate rental line and over to a smiling woman, one of the teachers’ friends who volunteered for the thankless job of teaching a bunch of kids from the ghetto how to ice skate.

Roy picked it up faster than most, probably because of the rollerskates one of his mom’s old boyfriends had given him as a birthday present years ago (if he knew then how bad it’d get, he’d have been nicer to that dude). He broke off from the group and was just getting into a rhythm to pick up speed when a little kid fell in front of him. Instinctively, he jumped to avoid the flailing limbs and managed to land on his feet, only to crash into the boards and the girl leaning against the other side.

After awkwardly getting to his feet, thankfully not slipping back onto the ice, Roy grumbled an apology to the spinning girl he’d seen before, who was already on her feet and rubbing her elbow. She waved him off with a shrug, probably having seen the kid fall in his path, and looked ready to leave when her banshee of a teacher ran over, screeching for security to kick out the hoodlums. He assumed _hoodlum_ meant him. That drew the attention of his own teacher, who stomped over to lecture the man about stereotypes and the good kids in her class (not that Roy was one of those good kids but it was obviously the principle of the matter) and how they’d done nothing to deserve treatment like this.

He exchanged a disbelieving look with the girl before turning and skating, only a little shakily, to the nearest exit. Fists clenched, he had to force himself not to kick the boards in anger. _Stupid, sweater vest wearing asshole._  Roy was just stomping onto the carpet when she approached him.

“Hey! I’m sorry about that. It wasn’t your fault.”

She smiled slightly, and after a pause, he half-returned it before spying the giggling group of girls watching them. One of them was wearing a Starling Prep sweater and pointing at the holes in his jeans. Roy might have been failing two classes, but he still knew a trap when he saw one. “Sure, whatever, princess.” He nodded at the pattern of crowns printed on her sweater and then walked off to his friends.

Only after, when they teased him on the bus, did he realize the girl was Thea Queen.

 

* * *

 

Mia Thermopolis had it right the first time.

Being a (quasi-)princess _sucked_. Maybe it was better if you hadn’t been born into it, if all the training and lessons were condensed into a funny, five-minute, rom-com montage (but, no, they took _years,_  and she couldn’t forget them if she tried), if you had a quirky best friend who’d make fun of the ridiculous people with you (the closest she had was her big brother, and he was _gone_ ), if there was a cute boy next door for ogling purposes (Thea preferred to save her own day and sweep herself off her own feet because have you _met_ Moira Queen?), but her experience of having been born into the whole affair was a _0 out of 10_ ,  _do not recommend_.

Which was why Thea hated the word the Love Machine spit out.

She didn't want a _prince_. She didn't even like the Disney princes, and they were fictional and animated. The only one the least bit interesting was Aladdin, but he was a lying liar for most of the movie.

Her entire life, all she wanted was a normal boy, with normal parents (not a dead father and a Machiavellian mother who was constantly _positioning_ her, although a nice step-parent à la Walter wouldn’t be bad) and a normal house (not a mansion with a freaking art collection she was forced to memorize). Hell, she’d take a word that didn't really make sense (like Ollie'sbecause her lovable dolt of a brother had probably never put _babbling_  and _brook_  together—and now he never would) over one that doomed her to a life she already hated.

Really, any other girl would love having _prince_  as her word. At least half of the world’s female population swooned over the British princes, and not just because they turned out less inbred-looking than anyone predicted. But Thea already knew all the trappings that came with money, and she didn’t want to imagine how much worse _royalty_ made things. And even though she’d never met a prince before, Thea wouldn’t put it past her mom to arrange a meeting, or several, if she knew her daughter’s soulmate was a prince.

So she kept her mouth shut.

 

* * *

 

The second time he saw her in person was the summer before he got matched.

After the ice rink disaster, he always paid a little more attention when her name was mentioned. Sometimes, he’d catch himself doing it and force himself to stop, because it was a lot stupid to have a little crush on the richest girl in the entire city, maybe even the state, because she maybe was sort of nice to him that one time he accidentally knocked her over. Oh, and she was going from cute to hot as hell. That really helped nothing.

Queen Consolidated sponsored an annual free summer concert at the park by the bay, and that year he went with his friends because the headliner was a band they actually wanted to see. Roy glanced over into the VIP area and spotted a skinny girl sitting on the shoulders of a tall, dark-haired guy. This time, the distinctive long curls were topped off by a bright red flower crown, and he scoffed under his breath.

Yeah, he was over Thea Queen.

 

* * *

 

The Love Machine was _broken_ , and she was two seconds away from having her mom buy the stupid company and destroying  _all_  of them.

Meaning Thea had just met her first—and hopefully last—prince and she was thoroughly unimpressed.

 

* * *

 

Roy stood in front of the Love Machine, holding a crumpled twenty dollar bill. Last week, he had jacked a sweet after-marketstereo out of an unlocked Beemer parked on the edge of the Glades (because people really are that stupid) and passed it off for a couple hundred bucks. He socked away most of it since his mom hadn’t been around in a few weeks, and it was just better to be prepared.

But then he saw her _again_ last weekend.

He was minding his own damn business, just hanging out on a sidewalk at the farmer’s market. Okay, fine, maybe he was scoping pickpocketing targets, but the yuppies with their wicker baskets of artisanal, organic, non-GMO, gluten-free food were just asking for it. He had casually turned to look down the aisle between the stands when he spotted those curls. This time, she stood in front of a bakery stall, frowning down at her phone while being completely oblivious to the wood sign above her head. As he watched, she shifted to make room for a browsing couple and ended up right underneath the crown in the logo of _The Bread King_. For a girl with her last name, Roy figured she’d be a little more careful about avoiding references to royalty and everything.

Sighing, he fed his money into the Love Machine. Maybe the new, improved version would give him an answer that was somewhere in the realm of possible.

“ _Fuck_.”

 

* * *

 

Thea pursed her lips, squinting a little at the innocuous machine. 

Oliver had recently landed on the belated and obvious realization that Felicity was his soulmate. Fortunately for him, that silenced their mom’s protests to the relationship. Unfortunately for her, that meant Mom turned her attention to her _other_ wayward child.

As far as Moira Queen was concerned, Thea had never been matched. Therefore, there was no guarantee that the relationship with that common criminal— _Roy_ , personally Thea preferred using his actual name—was going to last. In order to prove her mom wrong, Thea knew she had to get matched, but she also knew that, unless the Love Machine had somehow changed its mind, her word was not going to shut up Moira Queen. So it probably hadn’t been the best idea for Thea to storm away from her mother and snippily yell that she was going to get matched.

“Hey, you doing this or what?”

Of course, bringing along Sin probably wasn't her brightest idea either. With a lackluster glare, Thea fed her credit card into the machine then placed her finger in the appropriate slot and waited for the familiar sting. She retrieved the paper, already sighing at the known result, and said nothing as Sin read over her shoulder.

Sin snorted in disbelief, “Oh yeah, Harper's a  _real_ prince.”

Her fingers involuntarily tore the paper as lightning struck her. Something about Sin’s sarcastic reaction brought it all into startling focus. Thea grinned broadly and grabbed Sin by the elbow to drag her back out to the car.

 

* * *

 

“You asshole,” Thea greeted, dropping her purse on the bar. Roy simply glanced over from where he was restocking the bar. “You’re the _prince_ of thieves,” she sighed when he raised his eyebrows in question. 

With startling accuracy, a crumpled piece of paper—the size and color familiar to him after all the money he fed into that hunk of junk—hit him in the forehead. Roy barked out a short laugh and handed her the bottle of Crown Royal he’d been about to place on the shelf.

“Your _crown_ , my queen.”


End file.
